


For Morale

by lbmisscharlie



Category: Leverage
Genre: Blow Jobs, Casual Sex, F/M, Flirting, Kissing, M/M, Multi, Semi-Public Sex, Teasing, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:04:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8046895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: Alec’s mind is full of the grinning, teasing look Eliot had thrown him before jogging into the mine. The look he gave him after Alec initiated his traditional high-five-for-morale, throwing in a bro-half-hug-chest-bump for good measure, and possibly slightly negating the bro-ness by also pinching Eliot’s ass. For morale.

Or, five times Alec boosted Eliot's morale, and one time Parker helped.





	For Morale

**Author's Note:**

> 100% inspired by the look on Eliot's face in the scene about 19 minutes into _The Underground Job._
> 
> Many many thanks to the Leverage fandom as a whole, for not being dead and for welcoming a newbie many years after the fact, and to [Peninsulam](http://archiveofourown.org/users/peninsulam/pseuds/peninsulam), best of friends and best of betas, for listening when I said _yes you need to watch this you'll have all the Eliot feelings_ and then not resenting me at all for it. :D

Three

Even though Alec set the explosion himself – “Just a tiny explosion, tiny” – he still feels a swoop of relief when Eliot’s voice crackles in his ear immediately after the rockfall. Eliot, of course, sounds perfectly composed, even a bit amused, damn him. That explosion was a thing of beauty and should be appreciated, and Eliot’s in his ear talking like Alec did nothing more than swat a fly.

He tells him as much, and Eliot says, “I’m sorry, am I not properly appreciating ya?” and there’s another swoop in Alec’s gut. They’re the only two on coms right now, unless Nate can jolt his back somehow, and Alec’s mind is full of the grinning, teasing look Eliot had thrown him before jogging into the mine. The look he gave him after Alec initiated his traditional high-five-for-morale, throwing in a bro-half-hug-chest-bump for good measure, and possibly slightly negating the bro-ness by also pinching Eliot’s ass. For morale.

“Damnit, no,” Alec answers, aware that it’s a beat too late, and that Eliot will probably know exactly why. 

“That’s a shame,” Eliot says, casual-like. His drawl is coming up a bit thick, always does when they’re on what Alec secretly thinks of as the good-ol-boy jobs, the ones with real salt-of-the-earth country types. He’s got no problem with them so long as the good ol’ boys got none with him, with the color of his skin or the fact that he sometimes likes a cock up his ass. 

Eliot doesn’t give him grief for his wariness; he might get all starry-eyed and dopey around dirt and the prospect of hard work and cowboy hats, but he also sure knows that some of those good folks can think a lot of not-good things. Alec worried Eliot might think some of those things himself, at first, but the steely-eyed and even steelier-fisted ways he deals with bigots quickly convinced him otherwise. 

And, well, recent developments might suggest that Eliot has more reasons than just his giant boner for righteousness and his huge kink for self-abnegation to pick fights over someone’s less-than-savory language about relative manliness as linked to particular oral-genital contact. Recent developments like the way Eliot’s voice is currently pitched low, curious and teasing, in Alec’s ear. 

“I wonder,” he’s saying, “what are some other ways I could show you the importance of your work?” He says _work_ like he means _cock_ and Alec chokes, just a little. Before he can answer, there’s a snap and Nate’s voice cuts in, in the middle of a sentence, and they’re back on the con.

++

One

It’s possible – though he would never admit it out loud – that Lucille 2 is starting to stink. Just a little. The problem is that it’s too damn hot to do a stakeout, sitting out in the sun on fucking hot asphalt and waiting. And waiting. And, well, stakeouts are kind of disgusting anyway, no matter the heat, because bodily functions are a thing, man, and eventually someone’s gotta take a piss in a bottle. Plus, it’s entirely possible, though again Alec’s never going to say it aloud, that his stakeout diet of orange soda, gummies, and Cheetos _occasionally_ causes a little distress of the gastro-intestinal variety. 

Next to him, Eliot shifts, and then jerks back. “Jesus fuck, man! That’s like a fucking nuclear bomb.” Alec bats his eyelashes, angelic innocence, and Eliot shoves him, pushing him off his stool. “You’re a health hazard,” he says. “I’m calling OSHA.” 

“Hey, man, you tell our mark to just fucking do _something_ , anything, if you’re displeased with the current state of your employment.” Eliot looks like he might, in fact, beat Alec upside the head, but then the mark is actually moving, ducking out of the front door of his building with a furtive glance up the street.

“ _Finally_ ,” Eliot says, as Alec tells Nate to move in over his com. As soon as the man rounds the corner, Eliot’s jerking at the handles of Lucille 2’s door and falling out into the sunshine. He takes deep, gasping breaths of the fresh air, which isn’t funny at all, and hell, the air’s humid and sticky and not even that much more pleasant than inside the van. “Alright,” Eliot says, after he’s done with his little display, and screws in his earbud, turning on audio so he can talk to Alec once he’s in the building.

Alec, half hanging out of the van, holds up one hand, tilts his head. Eliot narrows his eyes. He leaves him hanging for a minute, then raises his own and high-fives him. Alec grabs his hand, pulls him in closer, and gives him a lick on his ear, half kiss and half wet willy, and grins at the disgusted look he gets in return when Eliot jerks away. 

“Damnit, Hardison,” he says, at the same time Alec says, “For morale.” There’s a long, narrow-eyed pause, and then Eliot says, “Just roll a window down before I get back,” and turns to jog into the building and do his retrieval thing.

Alec had wondered, for a time, if the flinty glares Eliot gave him at his high fives had been more than just annoyance at Alec’s garrulous, irrepressible charm, and maybe had something to do with the fact that Alec was kind of being an asshole by continuing the high-five thing after Eliot had been kind of a bigger asshole by using it as a ruse to slice Alec’s hand open and (temporarily) get a bunch of rednecks off their trail. Like, maybe he thought Alec was still sore about it and pointedly reminding him. That’s when he had instituted the high-five-and-maybe-a-little-bit-more-for-morale, in the hopes that a good chest bump or bro-hug would reassure Eliot that he meant it in good, team-building faith. 

Eliot still always looks annoyed, but it seems more often accompanied with the sort of gestural expressions that mean Eliot is tolerant-to-vaguely-fond of whatever just occurred: a sort of sniff and nose-wiggle, a grimace that doesn’t meet the eyes, a huff and a bit of a hair-flip as he turns away. 

++

Four

Eliot clutches the accessibility bar in the toilet cubicle, and thunks his head on the tiled wall. Alec grins up at him, wanting to mouth at his softening cock and give him a good clean-up before tucking him back into his pants, but he’s not sure if Eliot is an oh-god-don’t-touch-me or a yeah-baby-that-feels-good sort of guy after a good orgasm. He risks it, mouthing at the tip, and he can feel the groan Eliot gives shudder through his body where Alec’s hands are gripping his hips, so he’s guessing it’s the latter.

He wonders if he can get Eliot to call him baby. 

Once Eliot’s cock is clean – well, shiny with Alec’s spit but clean of come – Alec tucks him back into his boxers and zips his fly, giving him a little pat when he’s all snugged away again. He can feel the way Eliot’s very pointedly not saying anything about that. Alec sits back on his heels and just as pointedly doesn’t say anything about his knees on the hard – and filthy – tile floor. “I’m the best morale-booster ever,” he says.

Eliot glares down at him, like he wants to cuff him around the ear but moving is too much effort, and jesus fuck the thought that he’s found something, other than possibly-imminently-fatal bodily harm, that makes Eliot not want to move sends shocks down to his already-hard cock. Eliot must notice, because he laconically picks up one foot, nudges it between Alec’s spread thighs, and says, “How’s your morale doing there, buddy?” 

His boot is fucking huge, but somehow he manages to rub it teasingly gently over Alec’s cock, and Alec is 100% not coming by rutting himself against his friend’s foot in a dirty public bathroom the very first time they’ve orgasmed in each other’s presence, but he could. If that were not a thing that would be devastatingly embarrassing and also fodder for Eliot’s teasing for, oh, ever. 

Instead he stands and crowds himself up against Eliot’s side, and unzips. He’s fucking hard, and jerks himself with brusquer movements than he’d use all by himself, and he maybe is rubbing himself against Eliot’s thigh a little, which is hard and muscly and very firmly between Alec’s legs. Eliot doesn’t say anything, but his mouth is up against Alec’s neck, panting and then kissing and then licking, and when Alec comes he manages to, quite politely he thinks, catch most of his come in his fist rather than splatter it on Eliot’s jeans. Even if he might want to, just a bit. 

He gropes for a paper towel, not leaving his place half-draped over Eliot’s thigh and torso, and wipes his hand messily. He’s maybe also a yeah-baby-that-feels-good sort of guy, so he rocks himself subtly against Eliot, who doesn’t move, but does say, “Damnit, Hardison,” very softly against Alec’s neck. 

“Admit it,” he says, to Eliot’s temple, “I’m the best morale-booster.” 

“Well, your methods are unique,” Eliot says, deadpan, “but I’d have to see what the others had to give before I made a final call.” 

“Aw, man, why do you gotta,” Alec says, because they both know that Nate and Sophie are boosting each other’s morale just fine, and it’s a picture that Alec does not actually want to dwell on. And Parker, well, Parker he’s been trying not to dwell on too much either, not until she lets him know what she wants to do with – pretzels. If it’s just a craving and will pass, or – 

Eliot must sense his mind shifting, because he pulls back enough to peer at Alec, who absolutely does not look a tiny bit lovesick and a tiny bit confused. “I think, eventually,” Eliot says, kind of cautiously, “your morale skills will be appreciated more generally.” It’s said awfully gently, but there’s also a sort of tightening in Eliot’s spread stance as he pulls away, just a bit. Alec clutches at his arm and then, at the wild, startled look in Eliot’s eyes, releases him and they shuffle apart. 

Turning away, Eliot washes his hands, even though he hasn’t touched anything except the accessibility bar and Alec’s head, very briefly before consciously releasing. (Even though he doesn’t need to let go, Alec makes a note to tell him, can grip his head and guide him and –). Alec follows his lead, his own hands significantly stickier, and straightens his shirt in the mirror, makes sure his fly is all the way up. At the door, one hand on the knob before he opens it, Alec holds up his hand.

Eliot slaps it and grins, looking away a bit. The smile as he parrots Alec’s “For morale” doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and Alec feels something in his gut swoop and fall. 

++

Two

“For morale,” he says, holding his hand up. Eliot looks at him cautiously, clearly remembering the feeling of Alec’s wet tongue in his ear, but finally lifts his own hand to meet it. 

This time, Alec reaches with his other hand – and later he’ll think how he’s got to be telegraphing his movements in neon lights, at least to a guy with Eliot’s senses, but Eliot lets him, lets him every time – and cups it around the back of Eliot’s neck. He thinks he means to just knock their foreheads together, but Eliot gives a bright, startled little blink as Alec’s face moves closer and he just – just puts his mouth on Eliot’s. 

Eliot jerks back, just his head, and stares at Alec, who grins, hugely, wildly, and is about to say something when Eliot shoves back in and kisses _him_. In his shock, Alec’s hand drops away from Eliot’s neck, because Eliot kissing is _good_ , is real good, and okay, yes, he’s imagined it, has perhaps watched once or twice when Eliot greeted someone he found for the night, but Eliot kisses with intent and it blows Alec’s half-prank, half-tease, half-playing-chicken-with-my-friend-because-his-boundaries-are-perhaps-starting-to-crumble-but-need-help right out of the water. 

Eliot releases his mouth and steps away in one movement, and Alec definitely does not stumble forward with the sudden loss of his firm, broad-shouldered support. He’s not even breathing hard, the bastard, and his mouth is shiny and parted and red, the absolute fucking bastard. 

“Um,” Alec says, and in his ear Nate clears his throat, and that is, well, that is just fucking goddamn great. 

“Can I go now?” Eliot asks, clearly amused, and Alec nod.

“Yeah,” he says, and then clears his suddenly hoarse throat. “Go get ‘em, tiger,” he says, finally, which is sort of close to something he might actually say, were this real life and not a life where Eliot fucking Spencer just spectacularly met his game of chicken and shifted it, hard, into mutually assured destruction, and everyone on coms heard it. 

Eliot glances over his shoulder, already three steps away, and gives him a little growl that he hears in both ears, distantly in the empty one and rumbling right down his jawline through his com, and that is _really_ not fair.

++

Five

“Morale, morale, morale,” Alec says, frantically, as he grabs Eliot’s face and kisses him again and again. He’s aware he sounds like a lunatic, and he’s also aware that Eliot just got himself maybe a tiny bit blown up and it was maybe a lot Alec’s fault for not seeing the coded sequence that set off the explosion. He pulls back and touches Eliot’s shoulders, chest, hip: he’s intact, upright, the only blood that Alec can see coming from a scrap across his cheek. 

“’m fine,” Eliot says, not pushing him away. 

“I’m an idiot,” Alec says, and he means more than just his mistake, though that would be enough. He’s not sure what he means, but it’s something about the way his entire stomach fell out of him when the explosion went off, the way the sight of Eliot stumbling free of the building sends nauseous relief to his throat. 

“Not your fault,” Eliot says, gripping the back of Alec’s neck. 

“Is he okay? _Is he okay?_ ” In Alec’s ear, Parker’s voice is frantic, and he realizes that Eliot’s com has gone out with the explosion. 

“Yes,” he says, “yeah, he’s in one piece,” and he knows because he’s holding Eliot there, hands tight on his shoulders, and Eliot’s looking at him like he’s the dumbest, greatest thing he’s ever seen. 

He can hear Parker’s sigh of relief, and then, “I’m going to _kill_ them.” He knows if Eliot were on coms, he would tell her to back down – not because they don’t deserve to die or at the very least have some serious bodily harm inflicted upon them, but because Eliot would want to do it himself and would not at all want Parker in there on her own – and so he thinks he should probably do so.

So he says, “Yeah, well, wait for us,” and flicks his eyes to Eliot’s, who knows exactly what he means and nods. 

“No internal bleeding?” he says to Eliot.

“How would I tell?” Eliot says, the hand he’s got on Alec’s neck going up in a shrug. Alec must make some sort of panicked face, because he follows up with, “I think I’m good, man.” Alec frowns, because he likes certainty in his life and that is not – at all – certain, but the con’s still on, and Nate and Sophie are still waiting for the usb drive that Eliot was retrieving, and Parker is still probably hanging upside down in an air shaft somewhere, so they get moving.

Once the documents have been delivered, the mark well and properly screwed, and the client has given tearful and profuse thanks, Alec follows Eliot home. 

He’s never done so before, but Eliot doesn’t say a word, just holds the door open for him and gets him a beer. Every one of them could afford McMansions if they wanted, even at Boston prices, but like Nate and Alec himself, Eliot lives in a decent apartment above a row of shops – mostly painfully hipster places selling outdoorsy clothes for hundreds of dollars. Alec would bet his entire ill-gotten savings on the fact that Eliot probably hates those stores and their $600 wool buffalo check jackets and on the fact that Eliot, nonetheless, would look better in anything they offer than most of their clientele. 

Leaning against the island in his open-plan kitchen, Eliot takes a long drink of his beer, eyes fluttering closed. It _is_ hot, the taut, long line of his neck and the soft, wet noise his mouth makes against the bottle, but mostly he looks tired. 

“I _am_ fine,” he says; Alec is no doubt telegraphing his anxieties loud and clear. The cut on Eliot’s forehead has been cleaned up, but it’s bruising, mottled and ugly. Though he was alert through the con, now, in his home, he’s moving like it takes a little effort.

“Forgive me for making sure,” Alec snipes back, sharper than he feels. Eliot finishes his beer; Alec has taken two sips. 

“I’m going to bed,” Eliot says, instead of griping at him. “Are you gonna tuck me in, or what?” The last part comes out a bit aggressively, and weirdly it puts them on more familiar footing. Like it’s a dare, playing chicken, and not like Alec’s stomach is going to fall clean out of him at any moment.

“Yeah,” Alec says, “I’m gonna tuck you in so fucking hard.” That’s patently absurd, it is, and it comes out in some strange place between innuendo and bravado and mostly just sounds ridiculous. Eliot snorts, and leaves the kitchen.

Alec follows, mostly because, yeah, he’s not totally certain what he’s doing here – actually _doing_ , because of course he rationally knows that he, emotionally, is here because he fucked up and almost saw Eliot get blown up and then had something of an emotional crisis and now, as a result, is very unwilling to let Eliot out of his sight. Eliot lets him, leaves the door to the bathroom open while he pisses and washes his face and brushes his teeth. Alec leans on the doorframe, just watching. Okay, there’s a flicker of intent in his gaze when Eliot pisses – which is not really a kink he’s thought about before, and is not really going to now, so it’s getting put away in a mental folder for a time when no one has recently been exploded – and maybe a bit of hunger when Eliot grabs an elastic band and pulls his hair back in order to wash his face. He also uses moisturizer that smells like citrus, and Alec can fucking appreciate that, just like he does the fact that Eliot full-on blow dries his hair and on his days off wears the type of cologne that a lumberjack in a bodice-ripping romance novel might wear and carries around a tube of nice lip balm, not just cheap Chapstick. Alec has kissed those lips, and smelled that neck, and clutched that hair, and rubbed his check against that face, and yes, goddamn it, he appreciates every bit of care Eliot puts into his body.

He does, sort of sometimes, suspect that there were times Eliot could not, or could not afford to, take such care, and even if he didn’t really, really like robbing rich bastards, Alec would be happy to do so for the rest of his life if it means keeping Eliot supplied with Clinique. 

“There’s some spare toothbrushes in that drawer there,” Eliot says, stepping around Alec to move into the bedroom. Alec blinks, and then opens the drawer, where there are, indeed, a handful of packaged toothbrushes. He knows exactly what that means, and he knows that his stomach is doing something clenchy that is somewhere in the Venn diagram of jealous and turned on, because Eliot wants – expects? – him to stay the night, and Eliot is prepared for people to do so frequently, and Alec has not really let himself think about what he thinks about that since they’ve been doing – this. Not that _this_ has been a lot; kissing and a couple of blowjobs and handjobs and a fuckton of innuendo in between. 

He picks a green one. While he brushes his teeth, he leans on the doorframe again, this time watching Eliot as he changes clothes. He does move stiffly, but there’s not a lot of bruising on his body, and no open cuts at all. Stripping naked, Eliot tosses his clothes into a basket in the corner, and grabs a pair of pajama pants from his bed. Alec is quite resolutely not thinking about Eliot’s ass, instead directing his mind to the comfortable, lived-in-ness of Eliot’s apartment. They’re none of them very good at _settled_ , but there’s a looseness to the way Eliot treats his space that says he’s trying. Sheets clean but slept-on, bedspread tossed up to cover the mattress but rumpled – no tight military corners here. His pajama pants he’s clearly worn before. Probably a lot, because they’re really kind of worn-in. And clinging. 

His ass really is magnificent.

Reluctantly, Alec turns away to spit and rinse his mouth, Eliot climbing into bed as he does so. When he turns back, Eliot has one arm curled above his head, chin tucked in, eyes closed.

“Are you – are you sleeping?” He doesn’t mean – well. That he expects – well. But. 

“You should try it sometime,” Eliot says. He sounds, well, sleepy. “Instead of replacing actual alertness with orange soda and energy drinks.”

“I don’t do that,” Alec protests. Eliot doesn’t say anything. “Okay, yeah, fine. Are you asking me to sleep with you?” He has officially lost all capacity for flirting; that was disgustingly earnest. 

“Yes,” Eliot says. The other side of the bed is empty, bedspread shoved back. 

“Um.” He’s the soul of wit, he is. Eliot doesn’t move, doesn’t even look at him, face still snugged against his curled elbow. He kicks off his shoes and strips down to his underwear, slides into the bed. 

He lies on his back, very still. Eliot huffs; he’s not even looking at him, and Alec can feel his glare. Reaching for him, Eliot drapes his arm very pointedly over Alec’s stomach. It’s a very distinctive cuddle, Alec thinks, slightly manic.

“Freak out in the morning,” Eliot mumbles into Alec’s shoulder.

“What? I’m not freaking out, man. I’m cool. I’m the definition of cool.” He is babbling though. But not freaking out.

“I’m tired,” Eliot says, not impatiently, exactly, but perhaps a bit pointed.

“I thought you only slept ninety minutes a day,” Alec says back. His face is very close to Eliot’s. 

“What can I say?” There’s a yawn imminent in Eliot’s voice. Alec does not find that adorable, not at all. “Getting blown up takes it outta ya.”

“Almost blown up,” Alec says. “Almost.” Eliot’s hand flexes on his hip.

“Yes,” he says, like he’s summoning every inch of his patience. Beyond the weird, jittering anxiety that seems to be very insistently staying around, Alec appreciates the novelty. Eliot usually just shouts at him and does that gruff, posturing _I’m just here to kick ass_ thing. The thing that means he’s falling back on the familiarity of his skill set, Alec thinks. “Freak out tomorrow,” he says again.

++

Plus One

In the morning, Eliot’s already awake when Alec slowly blinks into alertness. His face is mashed against the pillow and, yeah, he’s drooled a little. He’s smooth like that. 

When he steps into Eliot’s kitchen, still only wearing his boxer briefs, Parker is sitting on the counter, tossing grapes up and catching them in her mouth. Eliot, wearing an apron – and it’s basic canvas and utilitarian, and by god Alec is going to buy him one covered in frills that says _blow the cook_ or something – and his pajama pants, flips a pancake at the stove. Excellent manual dexterity, the filthy little – not that little – part of his mind says, with a mental eyebrow waggle. 

“I, um,” Alec says. His breath is probably rank. “I stayed over to make sure Eliot was okay,” he says, knowing it sounds like a bald-faced lie even though it’s the god’s honest truth. 

“For morale,” Eliot says under his breath, and how is he okay with all of this? Alec is sort of, maybe a little, feeling his grip on what he thought of as the reality of what was going on here slipping away. Eliot hands Alec a plate of pancakes.

“Um,” Alec says again. Eliot turns around, leans against the counter. He raises his eyebrows at Alec, but the long-suffering patience thing he’s got going for him doesn’t really reach his mouth. _Freak out in the morning._ Alec opens his mouth to say something. What, he’s not sure.

“I want morale, too,” Parker says, and before Alec can mutter something to suggest to her that maybe that doesn’t mean what she thinks it means, she’s jumped off the counter and onto Eliot, hands on his shoulders and legs wrapped around his hips. Eliot catches her, effortlessly, and goddamn, Alec is going to try that sometime, because he might have a good few inches on Eliot, but the man is built like a redwood and yes, Alec would indeed like to climb that. 

Over Parker’s shoulder, Eliot looks at Alec, startled, and, god, Alec would swear it – guilty. He looks like he might be about to set her down when Parker leans in and kisses Eliot, assured and a little bit hungry, the way she goes about nearly everything she wants, and Eliot’s hands flex where they’re gripping her ass. 

Alec’s not sleepy at all anymore, thank you very much, and he’s feeling very, very far away. Stepping around the counter, he comes up behind Parker, who’s still kissing Eliot, who’s looking at Alec with his eyes wide even as he kisses back. It’s, jesus, it’s him checking in, but the tentative want in his eyes is enough to make Alec want to give him anything, everything. He nods, and can see the way Eliot’s shoulders relax a bit. 

Eliot pulls back and gives a little smile to Parker. “Hardison’s really the best at giving morale,” he says, kinda softly, and turns his body so that they can both look at Alec.

“Oh, yeah,” Parker says, and reaches for Alec, making the same grabby hands she does when she wants him to pass her a bag of gummy worms or a deadly weapon. He steps closer, sort of next to Eliot’s shoulder, but Parker somehow maneuvers him so that he’s pressed up against Eliot’s back and then she kisses him, over Eliot’s shoulder, so that he can feel the scruff of Eliot’s cheek against his own while she opens his mouth up with her tongue. 

His stomach does the little drop-swoop-clench thing again, and things snap into place, like when he’s figured out a security system and Parker does that oh-god-it’s-Christmas smile, or when Eliot’s downed half a dozen security guards in thirty seconds and Alec can just step around them to get into a server room. Like they’ve done good, like they work well.

He breathes out _oh_ against Parker’s mouth, and can feel Eliot shift away from him, as though trying to avoid being between them when Parker is clinging to him like a slow loris and Alec’s ready to plaster his body up against Eliot’s back and stay there, forever. Tilting his head, Alec nuzzles against Eliot’s cheek and nudges in closer, letting Eliot feel his cock, chubbing up against his ass, and don’t let anyone say Alec Hardison doesn’t have game, because Eliot groans and arches his back, which is _awesome._

Parker gets it, and pulls away from Alec with a little nip to his mouth and a tiny, happy smile, and kisses Eliot’s jawline right next to where Alec’s nuzzling him. “This is _fun_ ,” she says, in the voice she uses to convince people to jump off buildings with her. And, well, it’s worked on them both before. 

Eliot laughs, and Alec can feel it in his body. He grips Parker’s thighs where they’re still wrapped low around Eliot’s hips, and tucks as close as he can to the two of them. “Yeah it is, baby,” he says, and kisses Eliot’s jaw, so he’ll know he means the both of them. Parker rocks her hips, grinding against Eliot, who groans again, so near the rough, growling edge he gets to his voice when Alec or Parker has done something ill-advised but also brilliant, and “Goddamn, I’ll never get tired of hearing that,” Alec says, out loud.

“It’s a really good sound,” Parker agrees, wriggling against Eliot, like she can make it happen on cue. This close, Alec can see the way a pink flush rises on his cheeks, pretty and delicate. He hasn’t said anything else, not since he nudged Parker and Alec together, and when Alec slides his fingers into his hair and tugs his head back, Eliot’s eyes are closed tight. He scratches lightly at the base of Eliot’s head.

“I mean it,” he says, mouth against Eliot’s skin. “I’ll never get tired of it.” Something in Eliot’s shoulders loosens. He meets Parker’s eyes over Eliot’s shoulder. She nods at him, and even though she’s been joking since he strolled into the kitchen, he can tell that she’s been thinking. 

“I don’t like it when you get blown up,” she says to Eliot, then shifts her gaze to Alec. “Either of you.” One foot curls around his leg, and dear god, how strong are her thighs?

A beat. “We’ll try not to,” Eliot says. They all know that’s about as well as they can do. Parker lifts one hand off Eliot’s shoulder and touches the bruise on his forehead. Her expression is soft. 

“No dying,” she says. 

“No dying,” Alec and Eliot repeat. Eliot says it fiercely, like it’s a threat to anyone outside of this room and the weird little knot of their three bodies together. Alec feels something bob up in his throat. 

“This is all very touching,” he says, and, yeah, he means it, but he’s also still in just his briefs and Eliot is bare-chested in a fucking apron and Parker’s wrapped around them both like a crazy straw, and all in all he thinks there are other ways of continuing this conversation. To punctuate his point, he squeezes, one hand on Eliot’s hip and the other on Parker’s ass.

Eliot clears his throat. “I feel uplifted,” he says, not quite as drily as it might have been without Parker slowly rocking against him and Alec’s mouth on his neck. 

“Morale building _is_ fun,” Parker says, cheerfully.

Alec says, “I bet there’s even more morale in the bedroom,” and yeah, he does have game, because Eliot doesn’t even groan, just hoists Parker up with one hand and grabs Alec’s with the other.

This time, when his stomach does that _thing_ again, he just grins.


End file.
